Robert Bailey Jr. plays him at that age, but for most of the movie he's being played as an adult by Romany Malco, formerly of Baytown.

For scenes set at the Coliseum, the Astros and Major League Baseball granted permission to use Enron, where anything Astros-related was carefully kept out of shots.

Some stock footage from Oakland also will be used, and it helped that Enron's seats are green, an A's color.

Houston may seem an unlikely spot for filming such a story, but the city has become almost an assembly line for VH1 movies.

MC Hammer is the third VH1 film to be shot here. It's being made by Charter Films of Houston for Wilshire Court Productions of Los Angeles.

The same companies also teamed for last year's At Any Cost, a VH1 movie tracing the rise of a fictional rock band. Concurrently with MC Hammer, they are also shooting When the Music Stops here.

MC Hammer is being directed by Artie Mandelberg, with Charter's Howard Griffith as production manager. He said Houston and Charter were chosen for financial reasons.

"We have the crews, we have the talent, and we've proven we can make the movies here for the amount of money they pay," Griffith said.

MC Hammer is budgeted at about $3 million, he said.

Some of the cast and crew are from Los Angeles, but most of the crew was hired locally, along with actors to fill about 40 speaking roles for the two films combined.

Personnel for the two shoots is overlapping a bit, Griffith said.

MC Hammer began filming May 29 and wraps June 26. It will run about 90 minutes, filling a two-hour time slot, with commercials.

Other MC Hammer locations have been a house on Memorial, representing Hammer's home, and the Rice, representing a Las Vegas hotel and the office of Hammer's architect.

The Rice scenes were shot last Monday, just after Tropical Storm Allison struck -- but right on schedule.

Some rehearsals were canceled the previous weekend, and work ended early on June 8, when the storm's full fury struck.

But since no photography was set for the weekend of flooding, no other production time was lost.

However, post-storm adjustments have been needed. Charter is trying to find an alternative site for scenes that would have been shot at the storm-damaged Wortham Theater Center.

The Aerial Theater also was flooded, but Griffith expects to be able to stage rap concerts there for the movie this week.

He praised Enron Field officials for "going above and beyond to protect us from the storm" when filming was staged there June 6-7.

"They closed the roof while we were filming and turned the lights on," Griffith said. "They were very accommodating."

Hammer himself is expected to arrive here this week to observe the production. Griffith said he's approved the script.

"We bought his life rights," he said. "He's very aware of it and upbeat about the project."

Though Malco said he'll do "some serious dancing" as Hammer, he will lip-sync to the original recordings. But Malco has ample experience in rap.

Originally from New York, he lived in Baytown in the 1980s and went to high school there. He then moved to Los Angeles and performed with the rap group the College Boys, known for the song Victim of the Ghetto.

Malco later worked on music for films, such as John Leguizamo's The Pest. With that actor's encouragement, he turned to acting.

To play Hammer, Malco studied tapes of the performer so he can emulate his moves. "I've also had to alter my speaking voice to play him."

He said he was "eager" to portray Hammer since his story is "inspirational."

"He's a child who was born with an inspiration, who knew he'd be something special, but just didn't know what it would be," Malco said. "He tries to become a pro athlete, then a preacher, then becomes a world-renowned rapper.

"But nobody's in the spotlight forever. He loses a lot, and things pull him apart from his family. But he redeems himself."

Malco met Hammer while he, too, was performing rap, but he hasn't gotten to know him yet.

"I'm really looking forward to him coming to Houston," he said.

He feels Hammer already has taught him a lesson.

"It's unfortunate that people categorize redemption or success by where you are financially," Malco said. "In my eyes his redemption was being able to reconnect with his family and maintain his dignity."